It is a general practice to provide gutter pipes around the roof of a building, particularly residential dwellings, and to provide a drain or down pipe, typically at a corner of the dwelling, which carries the water downward from a gutter to the ground. The down pipe typically turns outward and terminates a few inches above ground. Water flowing downward through the pipe during a rain is thus directed from the pipe, and with some velocity, onto an area immediate to the dwelling and its foundation. This obviously creates a condition wherein the ground erodes, creating a gully or gullies around the foundation, which is clearly undesirable. In order to prevent this, various devices have been employed to carry the water away from the edge of a building. The typical device employed is what is termed a splash block which is simply an elongated trough or channel and normally made of concrete. A splash block is not a good solution to the problem for two reasons. One, it simply moves the impact of the flow of rain water a bit further from the house. The erosion problem is not greatly eliminated but is simply moved to a different place. Second, splash blocks, being above ground, must be moved in order to effectively work on the lawn around them, as to cut grass. If not moved, one must manually trim grass around the block to effect a neat lawn. Being concrete, they are typically quite heavy, being on the order of 50 pounds and are thus difficult to handle.
It is the object of this invention to solve both of the problems referred to, eliminating horizontal water direction and velocity, and at the same time doing it by means that do not get in one's way, thus simplifying lawn maintenance.